Small pet owners and laboratory operators appreciate the need for a clean cage used for housing guinea pigs, hamsters, mice and so forth. Such animals spend the majority of their life in the cage so it is imperative that the cage is kept clean if the animal is to maintain a healthy life. For purposes of simplicity, the remainder of this application will focus on the domesticated guinea pig as the animal of interest but it is noted that the improved cage design can be used with any caged animal including birds.
While humans are aware of need for cleanliness, animals are also known to be particular about the cleanliness and organization of their surroundings. To keep the area orderly, they will spend hours moving objects, piling bedding, building nests and, in some cases, stockpiling food. Since the quarters in which animals live are often small, these chores are essential to the animal's overall health and well-being. Unfortunately they do not have control over waste disposal and the pet cannot control the distancing of waste products from their food cache. Waste can quickly accumulate resulting in dangerously unsanitary conditions. Thus, keeping a cage clean is the simplest way to ensure the health and longevity of the animal.
The cage used for housing a guinea pig must be spacious enough to allow for activity areas and be fully ventilated. For example, a conventional cage features a hexahedral shape defined by a top wall, four side walls, and a bottom. Cages side walls are typically made of galvanized steel, stainless steel, or a combination thereof capable of withstanding pet chewing yet providing flow through ventilation. Cage floors are typically a planar sheet of material that can be removed for cleaning. The floor is covered lined with bedding such as wood chips, sawdust, wood shavings or pulp chips. This bedding helps keep waste from spreading, eliminates odors, and provides a comfortable support for the small animals. There are various hexahedral cage bodies known in the prior art, most of which include a bottom wall constructed of wire mesh or smooth panel. A wire net floor permits waste excreted by animals in the cage to fall onto a disposal tray positioned under the wired net bottom wall. While a wired net bottom distances the animal form the waste, the feet of the animal against wire mesh often results in arthritis, corns or even tumors in the soles. Moreover, muck sticks in those places where the wires overlap or are attached. Muck stuck to the wires makes the rearing cage unsanitary requiring troublesome cleansing, efforts such as immersing the wire net bottom in water for a whole day and night and brushing the wire net bottom in hot water to remove the muck from the mesh.
In a basic commercial embodiment, a smooth floor panel accumulates waste on the smooth planer panel bottom. In order to alleviate this unsanitary condition, the smooth panel bottom wall is of a tray type that sits on top of the wire mesh floor, thereby allowing the owner to remove the tray upon which the excrement has accumulated. The owner would then have to manually dispose of the waste atop the tray, clean the top surface of the tray, and then insert the drawer back into the cage body. In another commercial embodiment, a cage may have a wire top that clips onto a bottom tray. Cleaning of this type of cage requires the removal of the top and cleaning of the bottom tray. Both of these cage designs require the pet owner to remove either the cage top or the cage bottom. Although this method is a healthy alternative for the pet, it also entails cumbersome work by the owner to maintain cage cleanliness.
What is lacking in the art is an animal habitat having a movable bottom that, when pulled out, instantaneously removes and cleans excrement from the top surface of the tray, depositing it into an attached waste container.